Wednesday, October 17, 2012

The Tale of the Saddest "Seitan."

No yummy sausage balls in sight, 'cuz there's a new xgfx protein in town.

This is sorta a long, sad story, but I'll shorten it up for you.

See that bowl of pho? Well I was planning to make some today, but instead of the TVP sausage balls I usually make, I was excited to try the "Gluten-Free Seitan" from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Gluten-Free Vegan Cooking.

Guess who the idiot turned out to be? :(

I wish I still had my Play Doh Fuzzy Pumper Barbershop, 'cuz I could have made some wicked gluten-free seitan hair dos and beards from this stuff. Instead, the gluten-free-gluten went down the flusher. Some things are not meant to be, and other things are not meant even for dreams.

After it firmed up in the fridge overnight, I had high hopes for a new xgfx protein source.

It tasted awful and had a really bad-bad texture, sorta like paté and Play Doh had a secret baby, who was forced to live in the basement without daylight.

I felt remorse because 1) I could have made something better, 2) I bought soy flour, and I have most of a whole bag left with no idea how to use it, 3) I had such high hopes it would be good and 4) Wasting time and money on top of throwing food away SUCKS DOO DOO.

So I leaned on my old friend Mr. Soy Curl, and we ended up with delicious bowls of noodle-y soup for dinner. The End.

xo
kittee

This blog, has joined with over 600 others, to celebrate Vegan MoFo - The Vegan Month of Food. Learn more about MoFo by visiting Vegan Mofo Headquarters.

40 comments:

My standard way: hydrate soy curls and squeeze out as much water as possible. throw them in a hot skillet and toss them around to get rid of even more water. add in some olive oil, saute until golden. then in layers add in and stir soy sauce, sriracha and agave or maple syrup. in this case i also used toasted sesame oil. you want to stir after each addition because each step will give you a layer of caramelization--do the sugar last.

That is a sad story! It's always so disappointing when recipes don't work out, especially when you've spent a lot of time on them and purchased new ingredients too. I'm glad the always delicious Soy Curls were there for you for back-up. On the plus side, I really liked your lines about the Fuzzy Pumper Barbershop and the secret baby living in the basement. Even in sad stories, it's good to have funny parts.

I'm so sorry you had such a bad, bad experience but the secret baby made me laugh out loud and be grateful that I didn't try to make that recipe. It sorta looks a little like seitan but that sad-face boloney color — probably from living in the basement — isn't pretty. I hope you don't have nightmares.

Awww... Sorry you had to waste food Kittee. Your comment about pate and play-doh having a baby who lives in a basement cracked me up though- so smile about that at least! Your food looks delicious (except for the naughty gf seitan).

god, that sounds disgusting! who the heck recipe tested that book? gluten-free seitan intrigued me when i heard about it, but kind of assumed it was too good to be true :/ bravo to you for trying it out, though! pate and playdoe sounds repulsive.

i'm with you on having no idea what to do with soy flour. on the possible plus side, if you bought it at whole foods, you can return it(even if it's opened).

soy flour is good as long as it's fully cooked (same with raw vs cooked chickpea flour). I've added it to pancakes to up the protein content as the flavor is neutral like tofu but yeah the big thing is that it needs to be cooked or it tastes like modeling clay and chaulk.

I have no idea what to do with the rest of the soy flour, but I just wanted to thank you for making me laugh until the soy milk came out my nose. "pate and play doh had a secret baby, who had to live in the basement without sunlight." hahaha. That was the best thing I have read all day.

I am so sorry for your sad story. Wasting time and money and ingredients on something that doesn't turn out TOTALLY SUCKS DOO DOO. I most definitely agree. Thank god soy curls were there to save the day.

I'm pretty sure you can use soy flour to replace chickpea flour in any recipe that calls for chickpea flour. It's not usually necessary as chickpea flour is easy to find, but at least your bag won't go to waste.

I appreciate your honesty. Every blogs food yums but no one blogs yuks. Tossing food sucks but so does eating food your body is rejecting--so it would have been a waste either way and at least you are nourishing mama earth with the compost. Here's to Soy Curls! xx

I could feed a small country with the fails in my garbage. So sad. Even the dogs won't eat it. But to the soy flour...I use it to add protein to all sorts of baked goods. Just sub out some of whatever other flour you are using and use the soy instead...but as Bex said above, MUST be cooked fully. I made some yummy breakfast cookie type thingies with it...oats and dried fruit, some coconut flour, soy flour, some agave or maple syrup, some sucanat or brown sugar, some almond milk, mashed up and formed into cookie shaped then baked. Yummy! And if I'm not totally mistaken, you can also just mix it with water to make soymilk, right?

Hey Joni, I've noticed that a few of my favorite cookbook authors will use a small amount of soy flour in recipes - I think maybe Julie Hasson and Alicia Simpson do it. If it's just used to add protein, can I swap it for all-purpose if I don't have any soy flour? Does it have any other purpose? THANKS, Queen of Food Substitutions! ;-)

"It tasted awful and had a really bad-bad texture, sorta like paté and Play Doh had a secret baby, who was forced to live in the basement without daylight." - laughed out loud and felt bad about it, since it was borne of such tragedy! Hey, at least you tried. You'd have to try at some point. Just sorry it was such a failure. Such a hilarious-sounding failure.